Of course, changing the early eligibility age would also affect how people plan for retirement, and where Social Security fits into the overall retirement-income puzzle. Workers can use their Social Security statements to determine their estimated benefits at various claiming ages and build a retirement plan around that.
Financial planners often work with their clients to come up with numerous scenarios, such as claiming at different ages or assuming they will receive only a percentage of their estimated benefits. A change not only to when people can get 100% of the benefit they’re owed, but also to when they might be able to begin claiming, could make strategizing more complex.
Congress may also want to consider other options related to the full retirement age and early eligibility age. Wendell Primus, visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, was part of a team that in February 2025 put forth a “blueprint” to fix Social Security’s insolvency problem, which includes raising the full retirement age for higher earners and establishing an early retirement disability benefit for workers at least 58 years of age who don’t qualify for Social Security disability benefits but meet disability criteria.
Legislators have struggled to have meaningful discussions about fixing Social Security because it is a “political pain” that will involve raising taxes, cutting benefits or both. “Both parties are going to have to go over the cliff together, so to speak,” Primus said.
Choose your own retirement age
The issue around the full retirement age, the early eligibility age and working longer is “often misunderstood,” Blahous said. “When people talk about raising the FRA, people are often scared by that, because they think, ‘I have to work until that age,'” he said. “Because of EEA, you get to choose your own age of claim, and you can choose it based on your own circumstances.”
Raising the age might encourage people who can work longer to do so, one study found. The number of employed people between the ages of 55 and 79 jumped from 33% to 44% between 1995 and 2018, according to a Congressional Budget Office report.
Still, younger workers are the ones most likely to be affected by any major Social Security reform. In the past, Lundrigan and his team at Young Invincibles have polled young Americans on Social Security, and many say they know the program is important but aren’t sure what the best way is to resolve its financing issues.
As the debate around Social Security reform intensifies, Lundrigran said he expects that his organization will cover the topic more. In the meantime, however, legislators and those with the power to influence change need to do better about bringing young Americans into the fold when deciding the fate of the program, he said.
“You’re having a conversation about the future of young workers, and you’re not centralizing them in the conversation,” Lundrigan said. “You’re not talking to them about these problems and not considering the implications on them.”
-Alessandra Malito
This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
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09-02-26 1129ET
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